MMS 1 (3) pp.

341357 Intellect Limited 2015

Metal Music Studies

Volume 1 Number 3
2015 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/mms.1.3.341_1

Heather Savigny and Sam Sleight

Bournemouth University

Postfeminism and heavy

metal in the United Kingdom:
Sexy or sexist?

Abstract
As feminist scholars, and heavy metal fans, it has been regularly pointed out that
the two positions are inconsistent, ontologically and politically, given the linkages
between misogyny and metal in public and scholarly discourse. Weinstein used soci-
ology to inform public discussion of heavy metal; but given our own epistemology, we
thought it would be interesting to analyse heavy metal through a postfeminist lens.
Postfeminism contains a set of contradictions: on the one hand it contains claims that
feminism is no longer necessary, the battles have been won; on the other, it argues the
need for feminism is ever more urgent. These tensions can be explored with reference
to postfeminist notions of empowerment and we argue that there are similar contra-
dictions in heavy metal. To make this argument, empirically we have explored what
is happening on stage and in audiences at festivals and at the intersection between
bands and audiences. We use postfeminist theorizing to inform our discussion, as a
mechanism to unpack the ways in which heavy metal can be both empowering (sexy)
and problematic for women (sexist). Understanding the tensions between and the
duality of these positions also enables us to understand predominantly masculine
cultures. We argue that where heavy metal is situated as marginal it may provide a
site of empowerment where women are liberated from mainstream hegemonic patri-
archal structures. In this sense, heavy metal provides a site where patriarchy may be
destabilized. Paradoxically, we argue, this site of empowerment may also be limited
by masculine definitions of the extent to which gender norms may be subverted.

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Introduction
There is an underlying acceptance that heavy metal discourses, situated in a
patriarchal context, are almost inevitably sexist (Walser 1993: 10912). This
is based on both the absence of women (Walser 1993; Weinstein 2000) and
the observation that women do gender, but on mens terms (Krenske and
McKay 2000; Vasan 2011). Heavy metal in this respect is therefore much like
other forms of mainstream music culture (Whiteley 2000). While heavy metal
has long had a reputation for being sexist, we suggest the picture is more
nuanced. Metal also provides a site where gender is subverted to the extent
that current socially constructed gender norms can be negotiated, challenged
and reconstituted (Hill 2011, 2014; Riches et al. 2014; Riches 2015; Vasan 2011).
It is this complexity we seek to unpack, and in so doing we argue against the
conflation of the genre, audience and fans. This article goes beyond traditional
sociological analyses of the genre (Brown 2011) in using postfeminism as a
way to make sense of the ways in which women are represented on stage
(descriptively and in performance) and their experiences as fans and audi-
ences. We ask, can postfeminism explain the seeming contradictions of female
fans engaging in what on the surface appears to be a sexist environment? The
term postfeminism has been used to signify an era where feminism is seen
on the one hand as both no longer necessary (the earlier goals of feminism
achieved) yet on the other as urgent as ever (McRobbie 1994); where women
are constructed as empowered, while at the same time this empowerment
becomes more and more narrowly positioned around their sexualization
(cf. Gill 2006; Banyard 2010). Is it possible for these two seemingly mutually
exclusive theoretical (and material) positions to coexist? And if they do, what
tensions and issues do they raise?
We set the scene with a brief illustrative overview of some of the ways in
which historically heavy metal has been described and defined as sexist. As
a site of theoretical interactivity, we then turn to postfeminism as a basis to
illustrate and explore the gendered tensions and complexities that take place
in the heavy metal arena. We narrow our focus empirically to festivals as a
popular site of cultural production; as festivals are often seen as a litmus test
of the Zeitgeist of the genre at that moment in time. Festivals have also been
viewed as a site of pleasure and a place in which individual and collective
identities are constructed (Duffy et al. 2011; Pitts 2005) and the construction
of identity forms a key component in research around heavy metal (Giles
2003; Roccor 2000; Snell and Hodgetts 2007; Spracklen et al. 2012). We use
the postfeminist literature to argue that this site of identity construction is
fluid and involves interaction between the context and individual experience
of that context. In media studies the focus tends to be on the production or
consumption of texts. Rather than focus on one at the exclusion of the other,
we look at the site of production (festivals) consumption (meanings for audi-
ence) and the liminal space where production meets consumption (female
guitarist experience). As such, the originality of this article lies in the use of
postfeminist theorizing to inform discussion, as a mechanism to unpack the
ways in which heavy metal can be both empowering (sexy) and problematic
for women (sexist). Understanding the tensions between and duality of these
positions also enables us to understand masculine cultures (cf. Enloe 2013)
ultimately providing a site where traditionally gendered power structures
may be rendered more subtle and nuanced, and available to challenge, than
monolithic discourses may suggest.

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Background
Autobiography is a common method in feminist theorizing (cf. Ahmed 1997;
Mirza 1997) and the genesis of this article lay in a conversation between the
feminist authors reflecting on the changes that have occurred societally, and
particularly within metal over the last 30 or so years. An illustrative example
is found in the spoof documentary This Is Spinal Tap. This 1980s parody of
the genre highlights some of the ways in which heavy metal has been seen to
have a woman problem. The following excerpt is from their record company
launch of their album and contains a conversation about misogynistic imagery
on their original album cover:
Bobbi Flekman: You put a greased naked woman on all fours with
a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a
mans arm extended out up to here, holding onto
the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to
sniff it. You dont find that offensive? You dont
find that sexist?
Ian Faith: This is 1982, Bobbi, cmon!
Bobbi Flekman: Thats right, its 1982! Get out of the 60s. We dont
have this mentality anymore.
Ian Faith: Well, you should have seen the cover they wanted
to do! It wasnt a glove, believe me.
.
Ian Faith: Theyre not gonna release the album because
they have decided that the cover is sexist.
Nigel Tufnel: Well, so what? Whats wrong with bein sexy? I
mean theres no
Ian Faith: Sex-IST!
David St. Hubbins: IST!
(Reiner 1984)
This excerpt is illustrative of the way in which Spinal Tap parodied (among other
things) the problematic way in which women were being positioned by heavy
metal bands in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, the Guns n Roses Appetite
for Destruction album cover of the 1980s, which depicted a rape victim, was
withdrawn (life imitates Spinal Tap), as retailers would not stock the records
with the sleeve as it was. Yet interestingly, Geffen, the record company who
enabled this cover to be produced, had actually refused Axl Roses original
request, which was to have the space shuttle Challenger exploding (as had
been on the cover of Time magazine in 1986); this they had deemed to be in
bad taste (Sciarretto 2011). Rape of a woman apparently not such bad taste. Yet
this was also at the time when feminism was claiming successes (Whelehan
2000); the removal of this cover offers us a glimpse of a moment when market
logic and feminist principles were seemingly aligned.
However, the time of retailers refusing to stock album covers and challeng-
ing such a level of sexism has passed. In a reversal and now conflation of capi-
talism and sexism, we witness an album cover that features a naked woman
in a vending machine (Asking Alexandrias From Death to Destiny 2013); so
despite advances in feminism we still see women sexualized, objectified, and
marketed as consumer products. In the 1980s and today, ethnographic and
interview fan experience tells us that there is something different happen-
ing in heavy metal compared to the mainstream. Our research suggests that

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women as fans in gig audiences talk of being respected and being treated
equally to their male fan counterparts (see also Riches 2015). So it would seem
there is a dissonance between what happens on stage and in metal imagery,
and what happens in the audience. And it was within this set of observations
that we wanted to think through this mismatch between stage (production)
and audience (consumption), between producers and consumers of metal,
between bands and their fans: is this seeming contradiction, between sexism
in production and empowerment in consumption, still taking place? In what
follows we provide a brief overview of the ways in which gender has been
discussed in relation to heavy metal, before turning to offer an empirical anal-
ysis of music festivals and fans engagement and reaction to them.

Gender and metal

There is a wider history of literature that explores the ways in which audi-
ences construct identities through music consumption and the ways in which
music can provide a significant site for gendered explorations of sexuality (see
e.g. Ehrenreich et al. 1997); where music cultures and fandom can play a role
in the structuring of gendered identities and subcultures (e.g. Kearney 2007;
McRobbie and Garber 1976) and that these may take place both public and
private spaces (the latter often referred to as bedroom culture) (McRobbie
1978; Bovill and Livingstone 2001).
The masculinist nature of heavy metal has been well documented (e.g.
Weinstein 2000; Kahn-Harris 2007) and Walser has argued previously that
[h]eavy metal is, inevitably, a discourse shaped by patriarchy (1993: 109)
(although to be fair this could also be said of much contemporary mainstream
music!). But there is nothing inevitable about this. This is a performance of
gender (cf. Butler 1990) rather than anything inherently natural. If we accept
there is nothing natural about gender then we start to see how women are
othered and rendered deviant from the norm; where women do gender,
they do so on mens terms (Krenske and McKay 2000). As Frith and McRobbie
note ([1978] 2007), men perform cock rock that exaggerates masculinity, but
this in turn means that womens sexuality can be repressed. This gendering has
also been held up by research into heavy metal fan experiences in Australia in
the 1990s (Krenske and McKay 2000) and the United States in 2000s (Vasan
2011). In the United Kingdom, we see a contrast where female heavy metal
fans have felt empowered (Riches et al. 2014) and equal (Riches 2015) but as
Hill (2014) notes, this is still an under researched and under theorized area.
Heavy metal can also provide a site where gender norms are subverted to
the extent that existing socially constructed gender norms can be negotiated,
challenged and reconstituted (Riches et al. 2014). Women are visible in heavy
metal and as fans understand the masculine codes of conduct; that under-
standing enables their rejection of these codes (Vasan 2011). Genres within
metal may well have a gendered component to them, but as Hills (2011) work
shows, the gendering of communities has been able to facilitate the challeng-
ing of gendered boundaries.
We accept that there is a complexity to the construction of gender within
heavy metal. Dominant discourses may make assumptions about the mascu-
line nature of heavy metal, yet at the same time, as Walser (1993) notes,
the androgyny and the femininity associated with metal, in acts such as Bon
Jovi, Poison, David Lee Roth are able to challenge dominant masculinities
in a way that did not and does not take place in many more mainstream
pop acts. And as heavy metal is dominated by men, in both its articulation

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and its fan base (although the latter is changing), it is actually no different
from any other types of music production in its situation in a patriarchal
discourse. Perhaps what is different about heavy metal as a genre however,
rather than pop for example, is its marginality from the mainstream and its
capacity to be political (Roccor 2000). This marginality thus provides a site
where political struggle can be enacted and where challenges to and subver-
sion of gender norms become possible (cf. Butler 1990). In this context acts
may be able to perform gender in ways different than would be possible
within the mainstream.
If we look at some of the subgenres in metal, we can see how previous
research has sought to capture the ways in which female fans experience
gender. Hutcherson and Haenfler (2010) offer an analysis of the way in which
gender is done (West and Zimmerman 1987) and performed (Butler 1990)
in extreme metal (which Hutcherson and Haenfler define as a subgenre).
They explore the way in which male experiences of the genre are expressed
and inform the construction of masculinity for fans. While the feminine is
noted, they highlight how (male) fans use the feminine as oppositional, and
as other (Hutcherson and Haenfler 2010: 10608). Gender and sexuality
are conflated and girly and gay are constructed in derogatory oppositional
terms; the masculinity of these fans is in part constructed by what they are
not. In the mosh pit, masculinity is asserted as men, both in the audience and
on stage, function as protectors of women for, the authors observe, male
members of the scene must show deference to the females while also enforc-
ing the code of behaviour violently, if need be (Hutcherson and Haenfler
2010: 113). Unusually for the subfield, Riches et al. (2014) focus on the
woman as the object of research (rather than as a subject, or in oppositional
or othered terms). Here they are able to explore and highlight the ways in
which the experience of the woman in the mosh pit is much more nuanced
than earlier research has suggested; for them, the gig provides a space to chal-
lenge expected gender norms (alongside those of etiquette and decency). In
this sense a range of social norms are transgressed within the visible example
of moshing (Riches et al. 2014: 90), and metal can provide a site where gender
equality and inclusivity are possible (Riches 2015).
Hutcherson and Haenfler (2010) note both overt misogyny in lyrics from
bands such as Cannibal Corpse and depictions of women as warriors. In 1994
Cannibal Corpses album The Bleeding included the tracks Fucked with a knife;
Stripped, raped and strangled and She was asking for it. It is fair to say
that research has highlighted the paucity of female fans in this genre (Vasan
2011) and it may be too simplistic to attribute this to such overt misogyny.
Some call for a more reflective discussion (Kahn-Harris 2007) and although to
us Cannibal Corpse reflect the more extreme end of the spectrum, the space
where such misogyny exists is difficult to attribute as anything but sexist. Yet
women do become fans of bands within the death metal scene, and in seeking
to make sense of why this should be the case, Vasan (2011) analyses female
audience responses to death metal music. Her data reveals the experiences of
death metal fans and band members to be deeply sexist and aware of layers
of misogyny within the US located scene, but at the same time, she observes
a set of contradictions. Female audiences claim empowerment and liberation
from the dominant patriarchal mainstream order yet demonstrate a knowing
in that they recognize this empowerment is a consequence of submitting to
the masculinist codes of the US located death metal subculture. Her analy-
sis offers a much more nuanced reflection than perhaps the empowerment
claimed within strands of postfeminism as praxis female empowerment in

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its narrow sexualized form, has been reclaimed as a site where pole dancing
and overt sexualization are presented as expressions of individual empower-
ment (Banyard 2010). In making sense of this context and behaviour (as well
as our own complex and challenged political beliefs) we now turn to the liter-
ature surrounding postfeminism.

Feminism, postfeminism tensions and contradictions

Postfeminism is often presented as marking a break with past forms of femi-
nism, although these observations are only possible because of the historical
roots of feminism. The aim here is not to rehearse the waves of feminism
but rather to suggest that postfeminism and its critiques contain tensions
and contradictions just as earlier incarnations of feminism did (cf. hooks
1984). Feminist critiques point us to changes in the way in which feminism
is expressed, as Fraser (2009) notes, we have moved away from a politics of
equality and liberation, towards a politics of identity. And this is not incon-
sistent with the wider context within which feminism is now situated; a move
from a concern with the collective to the individual is a hallmark feature of the
contemporary neo-liberal project.
As noted above, empowerment has been a key term in contemporary
postfeminist literature (cf. Gill 2006; McRobbie 1994). Empowerment is also a
central concept within neo-liberal thinking: empowerment is possible in neo-
liberalism through freedom to engage in the market. In postfeminist critiques
our attention is drawn to the way in which empowerment has become very
narrowly defined: consistent with neo-liberal tenets it is individually focused,
but it is also gendered empowerment becomes contingent upon a womans
body and her capacity to express her sexuality (cf. Glick 2000; Gill 2008).
The contradictions in the literature that seek to both critique and define
postfeminism are helpful here in making sense of the contradictions within
heavy metal culture. Clearly, one of the challenges is in articulating what
postfeminism means. It has been variously referred to as marking a break with
the hegemonic white middle-class feminism of before, in its recognition of
postcolonialism, postmodernism and post-structuralism (Brooks 1997; hooks
1984). This also implies the emergence of feminisms (plural), which recog-
nizes multiple identities as different and coalescing sites of struggle. Some
feminist critiques point to the ways in which postfeminism constructs femi-
nism as outdated, no longer necessary; in this way the term postfeminism
marks almost the end of an era, and denotes the pastness of feminism (Tasker
and Negra 2007). For Faludi (1991) postfeminism is a way of describing the
contemporary backlash against feminism. Whelehan (2000) terms this retro
sexism, and as McRobbie (1994) observes in a postfeminist context we are
invited to both reject feminism and celebrate womens ownership of her own
objectification and sexualization as a mark of her empowerment. McRobbie
argues that in this way feminism is both taken into account (1994: 255) and
repudiated (1994: 256): we are invited to see the irony of outdated feminist
ideas, and reject them, in exchange for contemporary definitions of empow-
erment and freedom (Gill 2011). But despite these tensions empowerment
and freedom are largely restricted to their predication on individual sexualiza-
tion and objectification, which are defined by narrow patriarchal norms and
situated in a neo-liberal capitalist context. Empowerment and contemporary
feminism have become defined through the sex industry (Banyard 2010).
Indeed, Glick (2000) problematizes the current incarnation of these concepts

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and argues that feminism (and postfeminism) should mean more than the
capacity to fuck our way to freedom (Glick 2000: 19, drawing on Califia).
This notion of empowerment is wrapped up in a broader social shift. For
Gill (2011), we are seeing a postfeminist sensibility, which comprises an
emphasis on self surveillance and monitoring; a shift from objectification to
subjectification [women subject themselves to objectification]; the marked
resexualization of womens bodies; and an emphasis on consumerism and the
commodification of difference. But this is presented to us in the name of free-
dom (in neo-liberal market terms) and empowerment (as narrowly defined
by patriarchal norms and structures). In this article we use this complexity
to provide an analytic frame and backdrop where the tensions within post-
feminism enable us to reflect on the nuances of heavy metal as site of cultural
identity construction in a genre that is primarily regarded as masculine. We
reflect on the notion of empowerment to explore the restrictions imposed
upon women and the opportunities that this culture affords them to reject
those norms.
So at first glance it might seem strange to refer to a project with overtly
feminist aims, to make sense of a predominantly masculine culture. But we
argue that is to simplify the two. More recently, literature has been devoted
to the ways in which gender is done (cf. West and Zimmerman 1987) or
performed (cf. Butler 1990) and this has also been explored within heavy
metal research (Riches et al. 2014; Vasan 2011; Walser 1993; Weinstein 2000).
Our attention has already been drawn to the fluid nature of the construction
of gendered identities, and the ways in which this serves to perpetuate and
legitimate regimes of hegemonic masculinity. We argue that the postfeminist
critiques more broadly, with a focus on concepts located around individual
identity construction, and empowerment combined with an awareness of the
fluid and context dependent nature of these concepts, can enable us to make
sense of the ways in which heavy metal may well be both performatively sexist
on the production side, yet is able to provide a site where female fans claim to
feel empowerment (yet retain an awareness of the context within which they
claim that). Our article hinges on the complex interaction of these two seem-
ingly contrasting positions.

Method
Empirically, we wanted to explore the sites of both production and consump-
tion, and the space where production meets consumption. We adopted a
threefold approach. We began on the production side by looking at festivals
festivals can reflect bands that are favourites and or are up and coming as
well as the high profile names of the day. We thought this could be used as a
useful litmus test as to what was happening each year. So our first concern
was to look at where women were in those festivals; where were they descrip-
tively represented? We sampled at five yearly intervals, the acts that performed
at one of the major UK heavy metal festivals, Monsters of Rock, which became
Download. We began with a descriptive analysis of the representation of
women at these events, and then through ethnography and interviews, we
looked at the ways in which female fans experience metal culture, at festivals
and beyond. In order to gain a more meaningful understanding of the ways
in which women experienced heavy metal, we talked to around 30 women at
these festivals. Our phenomenological approach meant that we did not have
a scripted interview; rather, we spent time allowing the women to talk to us

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about how they were experiencing the festival and their views on heavy metal
more generally. Our data here presents excerpts from those conversations that
we viewed as illustrative of the ways in which women experienced and made
sense of what was taking place around them; underlying this interest lay in
exploring how women as audiences made sense of their experiences. Did they
feel a sense of empowerment or were women uncomfortable with the confines
within which they were being positioned? We sought also to explore how
female audiences consumed or received the music. Our final point of focus
is at the site where production meets consumption, and here we interviewed
a female death metal lead guitarist to gauge her experiences and explore the
extent to which this liminal space may change the nature of gender relations.

Producing metal: The descriptive representation

of women on stage at festivals
As our focus is historic and also based in audience research in the United
Kingdom, we focused on Monsters of Rock and Download, where we also
collected fan data (more on which below). We began with a simple content
analysis of the numbers of women on stage (Table 1). We then moved to
describe where and how they appeared (Table 2).
As we see in Table 1, the first time a female performer appeared in our
sample was at The Monsters of Rock Festival in 1995 when Sean Yseult, bass-
ist for White Zombie, appeared on the main stage as the fourth band of nine.
The next performers were Katie Jane Garside, vocalist for Queen Adreena on
the second stage on the first day in 2003, as the fourth band of fifteen. Angela
Gossow, vocalist for Arch Enemy, appeared on the second stage in 2003 as
the second band of fifteen; Amy Lee, vocalist of Evanescence appeared on the
main stage in 2003 as the seventh band of fourteen on stage that day. The band
Fabulous Disaster appeared first out of fifteen bands on the second stage in
2003s Sunday Line-up. They are the only band to have all female members:
Laura Litter (vocals) Squeaky (guitar) Mister Nancy (bass) and Sally Disaster
(drums). In 2008 on the first day on the second stage, The Subways appeared
sixth out of nine bands, featuring bassist and vocalist Charlotte Cooper. Eva
Spence appeared as vocalist for Rolo Tomassi on the Gibson (third stage) as
the second band of eleven. On the second day of the second stage line-up,
a female vocalist, unidentifiable through research, appeared with the band
The Haze as the eighth band of fourteen. On day three on the main stage
the festival witnessed its only two consecutive performances featuring female

Festivals Male performers Female performers

Monsters of Rock 1980 28 0

Monsters of Rock 1985 28 0
Monsters of Rock 1990 27 0
Monsters of Rock 1995 (Metallicas 38 1
Escape From the Studio tour)
Download Festival 2003 258 7
Download Festival 2008 357 6
Download Festival 2013 248 2

Table 1: The descriptive representation of women sample at five year intervals.

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Female lead vocalists 9+1 (with bass guitar)

Female percussionists Female Percussionists: 1 (plus backing vocals) + 1
Female bassists 3+1 (with lead vocals)
Female guitarists 1

Table 2: Where were women positioned in the bands?

members: Amy Lee appeared as a guest vocalist for Apocalyptica, and Sharon
den Adel appeared with her band Within Temptation as vocalist. They were
the fifth and sixth bands respectively of ten that day. On the second stage
that day, Agnete Marai Kjolsrud appeared as vocalist for Animal Alpha, they
appeared second of twelve. In 2013 Elizabeth Sun appeared with the band
Gogol Bordello as percussionist and backing vocalist. They were the penul-
timate band on the second stage that day, of nine bands. On the main stage
of 2013s third day, Nadja Peulen appeared as the bassist for the band Coal
Chamber. They were third of nine bands that day.
Out of our sample of 994 individual performers, sixteen were female
(counting Amy Lees two separate appearances). Where women do appear
they tend to be early on, or not in headlining bands. They are also much more
likely to be in traditional roles (see Table 2). It is notable for example that
women are much more likely to appear in the traditional lead singer role
with only one female guitarist. It would seem on stage that, while there have
been some women appear in recent years commensurate with advances made
within feminism (Whelehan 2000), more recently, the 2013 sample suggests a
regressive step (consistent with the notion of feminist backlash [Faludi 1991]
and a postfeminist perspective that redefines empowerment in narrow sexual-
ized terms as above).

Consuming metal: Audiences

We are also looking to make sense of the ways in which audiences decode
constructions and representations of gender in cultural texts. Following in
a history of research around the ways in which audiences use media and
cultural texts, we problematize the assumption that texts clearly transmit
meaning, and audiences simply decode them. Drawing on Lowe, we accept
that meaning is constantly negotiated and highly dependent on the context
of consumption and identity of consumer (2003: 123). As we are seeking to
make sense of the ways in which women experience (or not) empowerment
within heavy metal culture, we then turn to explore female fans response to
representations of gender on stage, which set the festival context. Here we
see that while women are descriptively under represented on stage, this is
often compensated for at festivals, by large screen audience shots of female
fans. However when it comes to audience shots of women, there is a limited
kind of substantive representation taking place. Postfeminism highlights
the hypersexualization and increasing pressure on women to conform to a
narrow version of what womanhood looks like. Women on shoulders in festi-
vals (and it should be noted this is true of Reading and other festivals and
not just confined to heavy metal festivals) are regularly subject to the male
gaze (Mulvey 1975) but this male gaze is now one that requires them to
lift up their T-shirts, bare their breasts, to the cheers of the audience. This
representation of young women in the audience becomes the go to way that

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female audiences are represented on screen at the festival. In many senses,

this mirrors traditional media coverage the women who are presented on
screen are young, thin, white and hypersexualized. Now it may be that the
older, fatter, non-white women, who attend gigs, just happen not to be on
shoulders at the time of camera coverage. Or it could be that camera cover-
age of audiences buys in to conventional media, sexualized representations of
what women should look like. Although we should note there are exceptions
in responses to this kind of representation: the one time we saw a girl shake
her head and refuse to lift her T-shirt, a male friend in the audience tried to
pull her T-shirt up he was met with boos from the rest of the crowd.
We were particularly interested however in how women fans were
positioned and their responses to this narrow kind of substantive representation
of women.

if women wish to share their attributes with the world that is entirely
their choice. But I think it is a shame that because a handful of women
are willing to do this that every girl caught on camera is automatically
expected to conform to this stereotype. I personally think it is a bit silly
and unnecessary, but then some women obviously enjoy the attention
especially as if you started flashing people in the real world youre likely
to be arrested not encouraged. I suppose women feel a slight sense of
rebellion and power being able to do something normally unacceptable
to elicit a response from a large crowd and for that I dont blame them.
Just the men who want everyone to do it.
(Sandra, festival attendee)

We could interpret Sandras experience in a number of ways. On the one

hand, her comments remind us perhaps most immediately of the normaliza-
tion of womens sexualization to the degree that women themselves dont
even notice it, nor indeed question it. Scholars have charted the wider social
trends that have been variously termed the sexualization, or pornification
processes and discourses that have given rise to a raunch culture (Levy
2005). However, simultaneously, the language of choice and empowerment
for women is being used by Sandra. She sees it as the womans own choice to
adopt and accept this objectification, in doing so the woman is able to reject
objectification and become empowered (despite the narrow sexualized form
that empowerment takes (cf. Banyard 2010; Gill 2006; McRobbie 1994). The
women we spoke to also exhibited an awareness of the processes at work,
the ideological behind the scenes power plays and in this sense the audience
was more knowing than earlier critical theorists of media and cultural texts
may have assumed (cf. Adorno and Horkheimer [1947] 1972) rather they were
able to use cultural texts on their own terms (cf. Blumler and Katz 1974). For
example, Shannon told us:

I think women at gigs are mostly respected by the bands, though

sometimes they can be objectified by members of the band in throw
away comments (e.g. pointing out someone with great tits). This is
perhaps encouraged by women at festivals flashing at the cameras for
the big screens to entertain the crowd. With this sexism as an institu-
tionalized part of the metal world, it almost seems difficult to blame the
bands for these comments.
(Shannon, festival attendee)

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 Postfeminism and heavy metal in the United Kingdom

So while a production-led representation of women is taking place on stage

at the festivals, women as objects in the audience are not always acquiesc-
ing to the role that has been ascribed. Shannons experiences also bear out
Riches et al.s (2014) observations about the ways in which gender norms
are challenged by audiences at metal gigs. At first glance this might suggest
that in the mosh pit gender is no longer performed (cf. Butler 1990), disap-
pearing from view, or rendered secondary the primary performance appears
to be one of musical performativity rather than gender. However, as noted
in Madelines reflection below, we are also reminded that a moshpit is still a
masculine entity linked to masculine attributes such as strength. Women in
the pit are treated equally, but that equality is on masculine terms.

Women at gigs and festivals are expected to throw themselves around

with the same strength and energy as their male counterparts. Women
can often be vulnerable to injury more than the men (though I think
most women accept this by putting themselves into a mosh pit etc.). I
recently experienced this at a Reel Big Fish Gig when I was elbowed in
the face and broke my nose. Despite this, Im pleased that most men
in the audience are happy to accept the women that want to be a part
of that atmosphere. At the gigs I have been to, people are always very
conscious to look after each other and pick others up when they have
fallen as they dont want others to be injured.
(Madeline, festival attendee)

At the same time, female fans also describe themselves as liberated from the
strictures of conventional performances of gender metal can provide a site of
freedom as Heidi told us unlike the mainstream clubs or events I have been
to, at [heavy metal] gigs or festivals I have never experienced any unwanted
sexual behaviour from my fellow fans, which I feel shows a level of respect
and equality. The equating of an absence of sexual violation with equality is
perhaps a damning indictment of our times. But it also reinforces the notion
that here our female fan does not feel objectified, is able to assert her gender
without threat, and as such feels empowered.

Where production meets consumption: The female

guitarist
Thus far our data have focused on the production or consumption of metal,
the following section is interested in the interactive liminal space where
production and consumption meet, when the production is female and the
consumption is predominantly male. We sought to explore this liminal space
through reflection on a detailed in-depth interview that we conducted with a
death metal guitarist. Given the dearth of women in this genre (and consist-
ent with our epistemological approach) we are not seeking to make generali-
zations, rather we want to give voice to, and reflect on, her experiences.
The female guitarist we interviewed described her experiences with a
number of death metal bands and as owner and player extraordinaire of a BC
Rich guitar. She played fast and technical metal full time in a number of bands
over a ten-year period. As is well rehearsed by now, this was a masculine
environment. However, her view, when she began playing in the band, was
if I dont foreground my gender, no one else will and our ethnographic and
interview research supports this assumption, as does other fan-based research

351
Heather Savigny | Sam Sleight

(as detailed above, e.g. Hill 2011; Riches et al. 2014; Vasan 2011). Yet the more
she discussed her experiences, the longer she was in a band, the more she said
she realized I had no control over my gender. Despite her attempts to adopt
an androgynous look with minimal eyeliner and dreadlocks, she experienced
her audience as determined to view her as a woman rather than as a guitar-
ist. While she described support from male band members who presumably
were supportive of her role, and of the norms this meant she was implicitly
challenging she found audiences responded very differently. She described
experiences of being onstage and being pawed by male fans from the audience,
having her leg grabbed and being unable to get the man off her leg, of having
men wait for her outside toilets and grab her (interview, 28 July 2014); how
male fans stood at the front of the stage, with arms folded demonstrating come
on impress me or making abusive comments such as show us your tits.
She states that in the end the interaction between her and the audience
became so sexist, so scary that she ultimately had to stop playing. And as she
started to reflect on her career in the bands, she told us, I realise[d] I had
gone as far as I could go, as a woman. Despite her attempts to deny, ignore
and subvert gender stereotypes and norms, it seems that there are still some
boundaries within metal that are difficult to transgress. Her experience paints
a complex picture of patriarchal boundaries and stereotypes that defined the
parameters through which she was able to challenge gender norms. In this
sense, we might reflect that subversion of gender identities does not neces-
sarily take place on equal terms; perhaps nowhere more clearly is this evident
than at the site, that liminal space, where production meets and interacts
with consumption. The broader point being that empowerment for women in
metal may take place, but only through patriarchally defined spaces.

Discussion
While women are making it on to the stage (so making progress in earlier
feminist terms in their descriptive representation) at the same time we might
also argue that they are more objectified, more sexualized and commercial-
ized than in previous times. The postfeminist emphasis on identity is helpful,
as it enables us to analyse the role of women, and the experiences of women
themselves. Moreover, as a theoretical backdrop it draws our attention to
ideas around empowerment as a key claim for the advances of feminism
(cf. Gill 2006; Tasker and Negra 2007). At the same time this empower-
ment has become more narrowly defined, as female empowerment becomes
restricted to the performance of sexual and sexualized identity (Banyard 2010;
Butler 1990; Gill 2006; Gill and Scharff 2011). The Asking Alexandria (2013)
album cover (of a naked woman in a vending machine) provides a heightened
example of the commodification of the objectified sexualized woman; the sexu-
alization of women in heavy metal (and across the music industry it should
also be noted) is nothing new at band level, at the site of cultural production.
Reminding us of the contradictions within postfeminism, Glick (2000)
argues that to be empowered we do not necessarily have to acquiesce to
or be complicit with patriarchal definitions of freedom. And so while at the
site of cultural production bands may be performing patriarchal identities
(and it is too simplistic to say that all bands do this all of the time), audi-
ences are responding in different ways. While some girls do indeed make
that empowered/sexualized choice to flash at festivals, and we argue this is a
direct response to the male gaze, at the same time gender can be performed

352
 Postfeminism and heavy metal in the United Kingdom

differently. It seems that female fans are not always subject to the patriarchal
performativity that is being espoused by the bands and we can see ways in
which female festival fans reject this discursive regime. This knowingness of
audiences has been well documented, and here for example, we might see
parallels with Lowes (2003) research on teenage fans of Britney Spears, which
showed how young girls were able to disapprove of Britneys cultural texts,
while still enjoying the songs and maintaining strong feminist convictions.
We are also reminded that when we speak of gender we do not only speak
of women. So, at the same time, male fans have been seen to respond posi-
tively, respectfully and equally to their female counterparts in the audience. In
audiences, women both historically and in the contemporary setting have been
welcomed on their own terms (see also Riches 2015). Does this tell us some-
thing about the ways in which metal may have something to contribute to
feminism? The marginalization of metal fans engenders a loyalty to other metal
fans, which seems, in the interviews and ethnographic work we have done,
to come prior to gender. In this way, the mobilization of loyalty among these
marginalized fans may be a way to destabilize patriarchal structures (female
guitarist, interview, 28 July 2014). Our analysis of festivals indicates more
women on stage in recent years, and, as women make up larger numbers of
audiences as marginal fans the potential for women to challenge the contem-
porary definition of female empowerment in its sexualized form is huge.
The empowerment suggested by some of the metal literature may be
available to female audiences (Hill 2011; Riches et al. 2014; Vasan 2011; and
above), however, what the experience of the female guitarist suggests is, again,
that the picture is more nuanced and complex. Women are empowered in
sites where patriarchal structures, discourses and actions allow them to be. At the
site of consumption empowerment may be a feature for women, at the site of
production there is much less of a sense that women are empowered, indeed
they are barely visible. And where production meets consumption where
(male) fans react to female musicians this perhaps reminds us that while
empowerment may be possible, it is contingent on masculine discourses and
patriarchally defined spaces.

Conclusion
Contemporary postfeminism highlights how feminism is both acknowl-
edged and repudiated; as a result, sexism is now viewed as causal and ironic
(cf. McRobbie 1994). Sexism is done in a knowing way and as audiences we
are invited to sneer at the outdated feminists who do not get the humour, for
example of the stripped, greased woman of the Steel Panther (2011) Balls Out
album cover (not a million miles from the Spinal Tap parody). Steel Panther
can be both sexist (in the old fashioned sense), while claiming to be sexy
(a liberated woman making this choice to appear in this way). This imagery
and sense of liberation or empowerment appears to translate somewhat
differently in metal audiences. (Young white) women more widely are offered
freedom but this is empowerment of a particular kind; individual and sexual-
ized in form, as a substitute for the traditional form of feminist politics (one
that emphasized collectivities). Yet at the same time, women in metal audi-
ences express perhaps a more knowing sense of their empowerment and
(the limits of) their freedom. Women in metal audiences do see themselves as
being able to define their freedom beyond the sexualization and objectification
that mainstream cultural discourses demand. Women may have gender done

353
Heather Savigny | Sam Sleight

to them (cf. West and Zimmerman 1987), but this takes a different form from
the way in which gender is performed (cf. Butler 1990) in the production of
women in metal (on stage). In metal audiences, repeated research highlights
a freedom, an autonomy from those discourses of empowerment that are so
narrow in the mainstream. At the same time, this empowerment, this equal-
ity at the site where production meets consumption (of a female guitarist on
stage, for example) reminds us of the nuances and contradictions contained
also within heavy metal. At this particular site we are reminded that in this
instance, heavy metal differs very little from elsewhere in the mainstream:
empowerment and the limits to gendered identities are still defined in mascu-
line patriarchal terms.
On their En Vivo tour Iron Maidens Bruce Dickinson said to their audi-
ences It doesnt matter whether youre male, female, Muslim, Christian,
Catholic, Jewish, doesnt matter if youre a Maiden fan. Youre part of one
fucking world and one family, my friends (Santiago, 10 April 2001). So does
gender matter to heavy metal? In essence we argue, yes, it does to women, but
perhaps in differing and potentially more empowering ways we have found
that the essence of heavy metals marginality has the potential to provide an
escape from dominant patriarchal structures. Heavy metal affords the oppor-
tunity to challenge gendered boundaries and norms. In this sense, we argue
that heavy metal may provide a route for destabilizing hegemonic patriarchy,
although at present, we contend, there is still a considerable way to go.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jenny Alexander, Alan Finlayson and Iain Macrury
for their support, enthusiasm and encouragement to get this project started.
We would also like to thank the organizers and participants of the Metal and
Marginalization conference in York, 2014: Rosemary Hill, Gabby Riches and
Caroline Lucas; and Jasmine Shadrack, Karl Spracklen and Gareth Heritage
for their energy, perceptive insights and engagement with our work.

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Suggested citation
Savigny, H. (2015), Postfeminism and heavy metal in the United Kingdom:
Sexy or sexist?, Metal Music Studies, 1: 3, pp. 341357, doi: 10.1386/
mms.1.3.341_1

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 Postfeminism and heavy metal in the United Kingdom

Contributor details
Heather Savigny is Associate Professor in Politics and Gender in the Faculty of
Media and Communication, Bournemouth University, UK. She has published
a number of books and articles in the broad areas of politics, media and
gender.
Contact: Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University,
Dorset, BH12 5BB, UK.
E-mail: hsavigny@bournemouth.ac.uk

Sam Sleight is an independent scholar and a student at the Erasmus University,

Rotterdam.
E-mail: sam.sleight1@hotmail.com

Heather Savigny and Sam Sleight have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of
this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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